Review: Game of Thrones S7E4 – The Spoils of War

It’s the sort of mid-season episode of season 7 of Game of Thrones. The last few episodes have been short on excitement and large on political manoeuvring, which is fine if you like that sort of thing. Most sane people, however, prefer sword fights and dragons. The official title of episode 4 is The Spoils of War. It should have been called Dragons, Bitch. It was freaking awesome.

Spoilers lie ahead. But then, we don’t need to tell you that. Also, some cursing, but Game of Thrones is full of cursing so you should be used to it.

After abandoning Casterly Rock in favour of Highgarden which, apparently, is made out of gold, we find Jamie, Bronn and the Tarley’s ferrying all that lovely cash overland in a wagon train. Cersei intends to ship all of the gold to Bravos to pay off the Lanister’s debts, but Highgarden is sadly lacking in a port, so the shipment must be made from King’s Landing. The journey is long, but this is Westeros so what could possibly go wrong? Bronn realises he’s travelling with a dude called Dikkon and we all giggle like schoolgirls.

Arya finally makes it home to Winterfell. She is greeted at the entrance by Sansa’s employees of the month, who she manages to intimidate into letting her in. Hey, the White Walkers are coming, some lady down the road has three dragons and a shoulder covered in chips, and the lunatic who shoved your brother out of a window has declared war on literally everyone. Better make sure the front door is guarded by Laurel and Hardy. Little Finger gives Joe Swanson Stark the dagger that was to be used to kill him. Once the forshadowing cleared, the three remaining genetic Starks took some time to realise what jerks they’d all become, then Arya gave Captain Phasma a sword fighting lesson in the most bad-ass scene of the series so far. It would remain that way for all of twenty minutes.

At Dragonstone, Jon takes Daeny into a cave to show her some portentous cave art before he begins fracking the s**t out of it. You could cut the sexual tension with a spoon. A wooden spoon. Davos suggests that Jon has been making eyes at her, but what he’s seeing is Kit Harrington concentrating on stage direction. “Kit, you need to actually look at her when you are saying the words”. “Oh Kay, thah mahyks sense”. Upon exiting the cave, they are greeted by Tyrion who bears bad news regarding the war effort. Daeny is starting to wonder if Tyrion is fully committed to annihilating his family and decides to ask Jon for advice. While we don’t actually see him devise the ultimate strategy, his initial suggestion of ‘don’t burn people to death if you want them to like you’ makes a certain amount of sense. After Daeny leaves, the Octopussy shows up to request help in rescuing his sister from Euron Kegmeister. He needn’t have bothered, as Yara seemed happy enough on Saturday Kitchen that very morning.

Back at Jamie’s great-big-convoy everything seems to be going great until the Dothraki horde shows up. Bronn encourages Jamie to escape, but Jamie is confident that his well-drilled spear and shield defence line will hold up against the on-coming tide of mounted Dothraki archery…. oh, s$&!, dragons. We forgot they have dragons. Drogon fries everything in sight, as the Dothraki do sweet flips off their horses all while firing arrows. The whole thing is very impressive. At least someone remembered that The Mother of Dragons does, indeed, possess dragons, and it is left to Bronn to enact the Lannister anti-dragon contingency revealed two episodes ago – the really big crossbow. It takes some time to both load and fire the contraption, so Daeny obliges by having Drogon position himself in needlessly elongated arcs. Bronn’s first shot narrowly misses, so Daenaerys flies away again to allow him one more go. This time Bronn pierces Drogon’s side forcing the dragon to the ground. Huzzah. The war is won, f$£% your dragons. Except it doesn’t work, because dragons. As Daeny pulls the spear out of Drogon, Jamie decides that he is going to die a hero, if you don’t count the incest and attempted Bran-icide, charging the Breaker of Chains while she is prone, if you don’t count the still rather alive dragon bodyguard. Jamie is saved in the nick of time by Bronn, who decides drowning is a far nobler death than cremation. The episode closes with the image of Jamie’s heavily armoured body sinking to the bottom of Blackwater Rush. It is unlikely that Jamie will die here, but it will be interesting to see how a man with an anchor for a hand manages to save himself from sinking.

Series 7 of Game of Thrones to date has been a slow burner but the payoff, actual burning, was worth the wait. The Starks are back together and the war has truly begun. Cersei’s plans lie in ruins thanks to Daenerys’ brutal response to being out-manoeuvred. The last time it looked like Cersei was down-and-out she solved her problems by setting them on fire. It will be interesting to see her response to being set on fire. The Spoils of War has also left Tyrion in an interesting position, now finally realising the emotional ramifications of taking sides against his beloved brother.

Season 3 of Game of Thrones had The Red Wedding, season 7 has The Red BBQ. There are three episodes to go in this season of Game of Thrones with the last episode traditionally being a budget decimating CGI-fest. It will need to be something very special to top this episode, however. Game of Thrones S7E4 The Spoils of War gets five burning Lannisters out of a possible five.